


Some Bullet Wounds Become Bandages

by citrusfriend



Series: Poetry [25]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Choosing to Live, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Healing, Hope, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love, Past Abuse, Poetry, Recovery, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Love, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26353402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusfriend/pseuds/citrusfriend
Summary: Others become bombs.
Series: Poetry [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1320233
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Some Bullet Wounds Become Bandages

Some days, I feel as though I am nothing but ache.  
I know I built myself this way,  
with my concrete foundations baked in old anguish,  
my bridges caressing the waters of my grief.

I was parent before I was child,  
I was threat before I was safety,  
I was rebellion before I was stability,  
I was grief before I was innocence.  
I built guillotines before I knew how to pronounce them.  
I held protests before I hit puberty.  
I was the front lines in this warzone of a home,  
carrying weapons that weighed more than me,  
combating parents who I didn't even yet know were the enemy.

I gave my family their rights before they even realized they were missing.  
And so now they sit and bask in their newfound tranquility  
and my mother sits in her resentment of my victory,  
but all I have left is war in me.  
I have so much ammo left over and nowhere to store it  
other than my own flesh,  
and of my allies, there are none left.  
They say the war is won, now, and turn around.  
After all, now the worst cannons have been shot down;  
we are all so riddled with bullets that we hardly notice the machine guns.  
What is a little more metal anyway,  
when for so long, lead has been our home?  
Shell casings look so flattering in us now.

There are no heroes here  
and ever since the cease-fire,  
there are no villains either.  
There are just good people who are bad parents  
and bad children who are good soldiers.  
I am nothing but ache, now.  
Nothing but emptiness that claws itself a home in my very being,  
nothing but carpentry splintered by shrapnel.  
I am both medic and patient and these wounds can no longer be healed, only transformed.

Sometimes the only absolution you will ever have is the absolution you forge yourself.  
Sometimes the hardest part of healing is accepting the knowledge  
that no one will ever truly understand how much you have burned.  
There are so many bullets they won't see you craft,  
so many injuries already healed,  
so many trenches they will never make home.  
I tore away a part of myself for every projectile, for every shield, for every stitch,  
and there is no memorial for that which no one knows existed.

The passage of time fades the scars, the evidence,  
into nothing  
until those you love will never see it.  
It is a new kind of grief to know that those you love  
cannot comprehend how deep you ache,  
how fervently you have tried to die.  
But the love blooms and grows regardless,  
finds a home in the wreckage like dandelions and mushrooms.  
Vulnerability and hope acquaint themselves in this bunker-turned-home,  
and those loved come to stay.  
Sometimes, the best healing is finally knowing for yourself  
how deep you love,  
how fervently you continue to live.

**Author's Note:**

> 9/7/2020


End file.
